The present disclosure is directed to computer graphics and, in particular, to automated development of avatars from image data of human subjects.
Avatars are used in a variety of computing environments. Avatars typically are graphical icons or figures representing people. They are used in online environments such as computer gaming environments, social media environments and other virtual worlds as identifiers of the people who operate in those environments. Oftentimes, the graphical representations of avatars are quite limited. For example, an authoring tool may permit a user to select from a library of predetermined graphical elements, which requires an author to select a face element, hair element, and the like, from which the avatar is composited. Some other avatar creators appear to develop avatars from manipulations of digital photos of a subject but they tend to involve simplistic modifications of photographic data.
The present inventors believe that users of computing environments may desire to use avatars that look like caricaturized versions of themselves. The avatars would retain a cartoonish element but would resemble the users' own appearance. No known avatar generator can generate avatars in an automated fashion to represent a computer user's own appearance.